"TV chefs are making vegetables trendy"

The forgotten vegetables are now no longer so forgotten. Hubert Deconinck and his father Nico have noticed this at their cultivation company in Wannegem. Although they originally started with peas and still work with carrots for the frozen industry, they also started growing parsnips intended for processing into baby food this year.

To be precise, Hubert grows parsnips on 2.15 hectares. Hubert expects to be able to harvest between 20 and 40 tonnes in total. The parsnips then go through frozen goods company Ardo to other processors who turn them into baby food. "Cabbage and courgettes have been in the spotlight for years, but we are slowly seeing a shift," says grower Hubert. "We are brainstorming to find out what vegetables are popular at the moment. You see that TV chefs have a particularly big influence on this. They cook with trendy vegetables that are different from other varieties. It was for this reason that I started in parsnips this year. Another advantage is that they are frost hardy. They were sown in April and sometimes aren't harvested until after the New Year."

Figures from the Flemish department of Agriculture and Fisheries show that parsnip is indeed gaining popularity. There has been a rising line in the cultivation of parsnips in Belgium since 2013. According to those figures the area of parsnips has more than doubled to a size of 130 hectares for the industry. The fresh market is far below this at 45 hectares.

According to Hubert all retro vegetables are slowly coming back. Because the demand for forgotten vegetables is on the rise, he sees the advantages of growing parsnips. "You used to only be able to get parsnips in special stores," he says. "Now it is possible on a much larger scale and they are often for sale in the supermarket. There is also a shift in the exotic cultivation. Although the sweet potato used to come from South America, we are now doing cultivation tests with sweet potatoes in Flanders. I don't know whether it's to do with climate change, but the cultivation is now also possible in Belgium in terms of climate."

For more information:

Kouterstraat 6, 

9772 Wannegem-Lede (Belgium)